Turkey welcomes Hamas-Fatah reconciliation

Fatah officials said the two sides agreed that the Palestinian Authority would take over responsibility for Gaza's border crossings no later than November 1 and that full governing responsibilities would be handed over to the Palestinian Authority by the beginning of December.

On Thursday, Hamas and Fatah signed a landmark reconciliation deal in Cairo aimed at ending ten years of crippling inter-Palestinian political division.

Hamas and Fatah agreed last Thursday in Cairo on measures that would empower the Palestinian government's work in the coastal enclave and take full responsibility of all affairs there by December 2017.

But, after the reconciliation deal thousands of Palestinians now look forward to better times ahead.

The talks in Cairo were apparently focused on enabling the Palestinian Authority to resume its operations in Gaza.

Although Mr Blair did not elaborate on the nature of the British Government's "informal" contact with Hamas, he appeared to be referring to talks between MI6 and Hamas representatives to secure the release of a British journalist kidnapped in Gaza in 2007.

EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini said on Friday that the EU is ready to help the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to reunite under "one single and legitimate Palestinian Authority".

"One authority, one law and one weapon", he said prior to negotiations.

The figure is a fraction of the number of police officers employed by Hamas, the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians said they were establishing committees to iron out details about security, elections, salaries and other administrative details in this latest try at unity government, but there was little or no mention of Israel at their press conference in Cairo on Thursday. Hamas and Israel fought three wars over the past decade.

For the Palestinian leadership, it held out the prospect of negotiating with Israel with a single voice, even as it forced the divided territory's most radical militants to make painful concessions that acknowledged their own failure to advance their cause.

One of the key issues has been punitive measures taken by Abbas against Gaza in recent months, including reducing electricity payments that left the territory's residents with only a few hours of power a day.